Suburban voters stick with known names

November 03, 2010

Two often-criticized county sheriffs easily survived heated attempts to oust them Tuesday, while Will County's sheriff barely hung on to office after being accused of severely mishandling several high-profile cases.

While some local races in Chicago's suburbs grew heated, voters stuck mostly with the familiar faces of incumbents or veteran politicians seeking new office. In Buffalo Grove, however, an outspoken trustee was ousted in a recall campaign.

Southern suburbs

Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas, recently under fire for his handling of several highly publicized criminal cases, held a slim lead against his union-backed opponent, Pete Piazza, who called to concede late Tuesday.

With all precincts reporting, Kaupas led his Democratic challenger by about 2,500 votes out of more than 184,000 cast. Piazza said he would not contest the results.

Watching how close the race had become from inside a New Lenox veterans' hall was "pretty intense," said Pat Barry, Will County Sheriff's spokesman. Kaupas had expected a decisive victory, despite the intense criticism surrounding the incumbent sheriff in the wake of the "Honeybee Killer" case.

In that investigation, Will County prosecutors dropped murder charges last month against Brian Dorian, a Lynwood police officer who had been arrested and accused of killing one man and seriously injuring two others on a two-state shooting spree.

The failed case marked at least the third time during Kaupas' eight years as sheriff that a high-profile criminal case had collapsed, including a 2004 investigation into the murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox and a 2006 case where officers wrongly arrested a dozen hotel owners and accused them of stealing customers' credit card numbers. The hotel owners in that case later sued and settled for an undisclosed sum.

Piazza, 55, a longtime sheriff's deputy, said Kaupas had lost the public's trust. He promised to make cuts to upper management while putting more officers on the street. Kaupas leaned on his 37 years in law enforcement and pointed to his ability to stretch the department's budget during lean times